


Cold

by snowpuppies



Series: Chosen [7]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-21
Updated: 2010-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowpuppies/pseuds/snowpuppies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mother's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

[ ](http://snowpuppies.livejournal.com/176339.html)

  
  


**Cold**

  
_Of all the people she'd expected to show up on her doorstep, a man in a fine tweed suit with a fancy English accent was about the last._

_Nevertheless, she showed him in, fed and watered him—such as her meager offerings went._

_Her mother had raised her well._

_But her mother had never prepared her for **this**._

  
***

  
She stalked closer, nostrils flaring as she caught the scent of her prey—books and dust and _blood_—the scent she'd been tracking for three days.

Peering around a tree, she found him hovering outside an old family crypt, waiting while the sounds of battle waged within.

She smiled.

It was almost time.

  
***

  
_ **Sacred Duty?** _

_Her head spun with the implications._

_She looked from the man's firm gaze to her daughter as she stared at her hands, fingers knotted together, a smudge of dirt across her cheek and her hair mussed from the morning's work. She was small for her thirteen years, but sturdy, always helping with the chores without a fuss like those of her town-dwelling, ruffle-wearing schoolmates often did._

_"I don't know…" she began, her voice small and uncertain as she looked between the visitor and her child._

_"Think of all the opportunities we could provide."_

_She looked around the dusty home, from the swept-dirt floors to the pinpoints of light filtering through the walls where last winter's patch-job had fallen away. She looked at her daughter, dirty and unkempt, her patchwork dress faded by the sun and worn by the years._

_She looked the man in the eye._

_"And she'll be helping people…?"_

  
***

  
She cut them off at the edge of the cemetery, between the low stone wall and a small grove of trees that blocked them from view of a nearby street, soundly knocking the girl's head against the wall before turning her attention to the man.

"_Watcher_," she accused, her face melting into that of the demon she'd sought out so many years ago.

"_The Mother_," he breathed, eyes widening in realization.

"You've heard of me," she answered. "That'll save time." Slinking closer, she smirked as an acrid smell filled the air. "You Watchers are all the same: yellow-bellied cowards kidnapping little girls, taking them from their _mothers_, not even batting an eye when they're killed. Because after all, it's their sacred duty, right?" She snorted, welcoming the familiar rage that filled her limbs.

Pouncing, she knocked the Watcher off his feet, her weight pinning him to the ground as she leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "By the way—" she paused, her tongue swiping slowly up his sweaty neck, "—you're lucky number thirteen," she finished, plunging her fangs into his tender skin.

  
***

  
_She ran as quickly as she could, out the door, across the yard and down the lane, yelling and waving her arms._

_But the carriage didn't stop, and soon all she could see on the horizon was the dust kicked up by the horses' hooves._

_Looking down, she gently stroked the rag-baby's face, remembering the way her daughter's eyes lit up on Christmas morning when her older sister presented it to her, newly-made and ready to be loved, the way she cradled it close every night for the past ten years, the way she clung to it when consumption came and took everyone else away._

_Her face contorted in grief as she pulled it close to her breast, her tears falling in the dirt._

  
***

  
The Slayer—the _girl_—woke with a start, scrambling away, eyes darting between her and the dead Watcher.

"Y—you killed him."

"Yes."

"But…not me."

"No."

"What do you want?"

  
***

  
_The telegraph operator delivered the news himself—rode the nine miles on the back of a stringy mare as stretched and thin as she felt when she saw his face, and she didn't need to read the thin strip of paper to know what it said._

_The yellow slip fluttered to the ground as she turned away, leaving the man standing empty-handed as her gaze tracked across the room to the pallet she couldn't quite bring herself to put away, occupied only by a tattered rag-baby these last eight months._

_And now it would forever remain empty._

  
***

  
_"They killed my mother. She said 'no' and they just…killed her. It was an accident, of course, but I know what really happened."_

The girl's tearful words echoed in her head, weaving into her own memories of grief until they throbbed in time with the girl's slowing pulse. She pressed a kiss against the dark head cradled against her breast, allowing the good memories to override the bad—she had missed being a mother.

"Don't worry, my sweet," she murmured, licking the blood from the girl's cheek where it had spilled from her mouth, "Mommy's gonna make it all right."

_FIN_.

  


  
***

**Fic &amp; Art Masterlists:**

[BtVS/Ats](http://snowpuppies.livejournal.com/124553.html) * [Harry Potter](http://snowpuppies.livejournal.com/124865.html) * [Heroes](http://snowpuppies.livejournal.com/125133.html) * [Crossovers](http://snowpuppies.livejournal.com/173568.html) * [Other Fandoms](http://snowpuppies.livejournal.com/125292.html) * [Art](http://snowpuppies.livejournal.com/156193.html)

  



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